Stripped Down for Parts: Fire on the Mountain (Legion Wargames catch-up order, Part 2)

 

I recently blew a windfall of PayPal credit on some games I’ve wanted to try for varying lengths of time. One is still on its way from another publisher, but the other three I was able to order directly from Legion Wargames. I’m looking at these in order of release; the first one I looked at was The Battle of Blenheim, 1704 (Legion Wargames, 2018). You can check out that unboxing here. The second game in the order is John Poniske’s Fire on the Mountain: The Battle of South Mountain September 14, 1862 (Legion Wargames, 2022). I’ve had a lot of fun with Mr Poniske’s Ball’s Bluff (Legion Wargames, 2015), and I’ve heard that this, Fire on the Mountain, and Belmont: Grant's Baptism of Command, November 7th, 1861 (Compass Games, 2017) are variations on a theme, essentially the same system, but with something extra to fit the individual battle situations.

The Battle of South Mountain is an interesting battle to game, and is or has been available in several American Civil War game systems. It is also significant in one respect of ACW lore. As mentioned in an anniversary post by the Wisconsin Veterans’ Museum;

This battle also is the most-commonly accepted origin for the famous name “Iron Brigade.” Late in the day an infantry brigade consisting of the 2d, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana attacked in the Union center along the National Road. “What troops are those fighting along the Pike?” asked General McClellan as he looked on. “They must be made of iron.”

Fire on the Mountain’s box cover features and extract from a painting by H. Charles McBarron Jr (1902-1992), a noted illustrator for US military publications and a founding member of the Company of Military Historians, as well as a consultant to the Smithsonian. This painting, known alternatively as “The American Soldier, 1862”, “The Citizens Corps of Wisconsin at South Mountain, Maryland,” and “6th Wisconsin at Turner’s Gap, South Mountain,” was originally prepared as part of a series of fifty illustrations released in five sets of ten by the US Government Printing Office, called The American Soldier: 1775 to the Present (released around 1974).

Lookout Mountain. This photo was taken quite soon after the Union attack 
on the Confederate forces. One of the rigid ladders used in the assault
is just visible (here's a better view (Courtesy of WIkipedia)).

McBarron worked very quickly, was an early adopter of photographic media, often working off existing photographs of his own polaroids to more accurately portray the landscape’s details in his subjects. In this case, McBarron worked from a photograph taken after the battle, but misattributed. Paul McKee, a friend of a friend on Facebook, has conclusively established the photograph from which Barron worked was actually of Lookout Mountain in Tennessee (site of the Battle Above the Clouds), rather than South Mountain, Maryland.* Nonetheless, the painting is beautifully executed and quite compelling. And popular; it graces at least one other wargame box cover – Grant Wylie’s South Mountain 1862 (Worthington Publishing, 2025), from Worthington’s Brigade Battle series.

Box back. I forgot to mention in the post, Fire on the Mountain is recommended
for grognards fourteen years and older.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, Legion box-backs are, in my opinion, a benchmark for how game information should be presented, The box-back of Fire on the Mountain offers a two-paragraph historical precis of the battle for context, and a much shorter statement of he parameters of the game at hand. This would be my only point of criticism in the presentation of the game; The black print on the muddy brown background made me work a little harder at reading than I’d otherwise like. It’s a small thing, but a slightly lighter shade for the background (or white print, as used in the game details inset near the bottom) would be appreciated.

The box-back also features a representation of the map (which looks great, even in miniature, but we’ll get to that), a sample of the game’s unit counters and markers at their actual size, and the relevant game details. These tell us the game’s scale – 300 yards to a hex, brigade-sized units, and one-hour to a turn – a truncated component list, and the game credits, which we’ll return to soon. The Fire on the Mountain has a complexity rating of Medium-Low and, while designed as a two-player game, is rated Medium-High for solitaire suitability.

The Rules of Play.

The rulebook for Fire on the Mountain is printed on a matte-finish paper-stock of roughly 100gsm, lending the booklet a satisfying heft for its size. The booklet runs to sixteen pages, but the first two pages are occupied with an introductory note *as seen in the above photograph) and thorough Table of Contents, and the back cover features the Confederate and Union Orders of Battle, so the rules take up a mere thirteen pages. There is an addendum to this count, which we will come back to in due course.

Sample pages.

I keep harping on this, but I can’t say often enough how much I appreciate the rules layout in Legion games; Fire on the Mountain is no exception. The rules here are set in a nice, easily readable sans-serif font and presented in two columns with coloured bars marking the beginning of each new section (these follow the numbering convention familiar to anyone who grew up on SPI games. Examples are set in text boxes, and the whole thing has colour illustrations when necessary (pictures appear sparingly, but not frugally).

Rules Revision sheet and Errata note. Seriously, if the errata fit on just a half-sheet
of paper, somebody deserves a commendation..

Fire on the Mountain, as it is presented, is not a wholly historical representation of the battle; the Confederate Order of Battle includes R.H. Anderson’s Division, which did not participate in the historical battle. The designer has included a rules revision to accommodate this shortening of the Confederate forces to equate any loss of balance caused by playing the historical Order of Battle (making Confederate defences a little more resilient in the face of Union assaults), and a second to use Anderson’s Division, but with an uncertain arrival time across four game turns.

Two small items in the rulebook remained uncorrected at the time of printing, and these are addressed by a half-page Errata note, also included in the game, one involving Movement Costs and the other a reference mis-naming a brigade’s commander. In the latter case the counters and Orders of Battle contain the correct information. No harm, no foul.

The map-sheet. Even with some encouragement, the folds didn't want
to give up completely.

The game map was prepared by Edmund Hudson. If that name sounds familiar, I’ve noted Mr Hudson’s excellent work previously on the map for All Are Brothers, Solferino, 1859 (Legion Wargames, 2025). He is also responsible for the game-maps for several of Revolution Games’ Blind Swords series games, including the recent Gettysburg: the First Day (Revolution Games, 2025). This map is simply stunning.

A map extract highlighting Frosttown and its environs. The terrain details
are clear, but subtle and unobtrusive.

The game focusses on the action in the vicinity of Fox’s Gap and Turner’ Gap, and is topographically challenging, both in play and in its representation. Changes in elevation are noted by a shift from darker hues of green though near-grey to yellows and browns (the Altitude key runs in 100’ increments from 400’ to a dizzying 1,600’). Features on the map – farmsteads, roads, trails, woods, and escarpments – are clearly defined without being jarring, and the hexes are large enough to comfortably accommodate the elongated (1.2”) unit counters.

The map-sheet incorporates a terrain legend and Turn Track along the Right-hand short edge (the Confederate left). Also built into this column are Casualty boxes for the two sides.

The game's two counter-sheets.  

The game comes with two counter-sheets, each printed on a medium weight white-core cardstock and each consisting of a mix of square 0.6” and the aforementioned 1.2” by 0.6” counters. The double-width counters are brigade-sized units representing the two sides’ complements of infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The square counters represent the two side’s divisional and corps Commanders and also provide an assortment of administrative counters.

The unit counters are a study in usability and at-a-glance identification. Each unit has a silhouette of an unmounted or mounted soldier or a cannon to identify it as an Infantry, Cavalry or Artillery unit respectively. Each infantry counter also exhibits a white silhouette of the brigade’s home state. At the right-side end of the units is a big, easily read number (two numbers for Artillery units) indicating the unit’s current battle strength in Strength Points (SP). This number represents the number of dice that unit will roll in combat (attack or defence), with an overall ceiling on ten dice per roll. Many units are represented by two or more counters, which are flipped or replaced as the unit suffers losses in combat and loses SP. Finally, each brigade is identified by their brigade commander’s name, which appears on the bottom edge of the counter, superimposed over a colour-bar that identifies their divisional affiliation (this is something reflected in the layout of the Confederate and Union Order of Battle cards, which we’ll see coming up). The regiments that make up the brigade are also listed on each counter, which has no game value, but adds to the historical depth of the game and is a nice, respectful touch.

The orientation of the unit counters is crucial in the game; the top long edge of the counter represents the front facing side of the unit, and the unit is paces in the hex side to side, to that edge is acing two hexes. These represent the front. The two hexes below the counter are the units rear, and the remaining hexes meeting the side edges of the unit are its flank. This configuration will, of course, impact on movement and combat. Up to three brigades may stack together in a hex (as well as up to two leaders), but only two of these may be infantry brigades. That's all I'm going to say about brigade units at this point. I'm no expert yet - wait for the AAR.

The Players' Aid Card. Only one is provided, but by the end of the second game,
you'll probably remember most of the regular tables.

Fire on the Mountain comes with a single Player Aid Card, a Set-Up and Reinforcements schedule, and two Order of Battle cards, one each for the Confederate and Union players. All of these are single-sided and printed on a sturdy weight of card-stock.

The PAC offers a quick reference Sequence of Play and charts for the Burnside Roll (reflecting Burnside’s order to all Union formations on his arrival at the battle to disengage with the enemy until he had taken stock of the situation), and charts for Rallying and Regrouping units, checking Morale, and a set of guidelines for Commander behaviours (various Commanders may be subject to different conditional rules in certain circumstances).

The Union Order of Battle;

...and the Confederate Order of Battle. Note how provision has been made
for the multiple-step units.

The Orders of Battle cards allow for the setting out of each side’s units in a coherent and organised fashion. Each Brigade has a corresponding template of each of its step-counters on the Order of Battle (one, to or three counters), and these are grouped by division. This is unusual in this kind of set-up, but it removes the need to stack and swap out units' step-counters on the fly.  Personally, I think this is a great approach; it should speed up solo play especially.

The game should exhibit a low counter-density. This is partly due to staggered arrival of the reinforcements for both sides over the course of eight turns, but also because, even if every unit from both sides were to be deployed at exactly the same time, this would still only come to twenty-nine units for the Confederate player and thirty-five for the Union.

The Set up and Reinforcement Schedule (as I like to call it).

The Set Up and Reinforcements schedule is just that, a card that lists the set-up locations for the initial forces, and breaks down the reinforcements list turn by turn to make it easier to track. Each unit that starts on the map is represented by its divisional commander and a reference to its position or on the board’s numbered hex-grid. The reinforcements are presented as a list of Confederate or Union divisions, with a map entry hex for those units.

Some games build the reinforcement schedule into the Order of Battle, but given both the size of the unit counters and the relatively low density on the board – there are only about sixty units among the two sides combined – I think this is a more sensible approach.

As always, the good folks at Legion Wargames have provided zip-loc bags in sufficient quantities to house the game’s loose components. I’m old enough to remember when coins still came in paper rolls and the best way to store game counters was in empty matchboxes or, if you were lucky enough to have a supplier, typewriter ribbon cases, so I always appreciate it when these are provided, even when they don’t get used. Fire on the Mountain also comes with ten dice, five each in red and black. Ten in all, which (as mentioned earlier) is the total highest number of dice to be used in a single roll, so that makes sense. I’m not sure if there is any significance to the two colours of dice as I haven’t finished going through the rules yet, but for what it’s worth, they do look like nice dice.

-----

So, that covers the components of Fire on the Mountain. Everything looks functional and really quite nice. The counters should really stand out on the map, and the housekeeping should be a breeze with the Orders of Battle cards and the reinforcement schedule. I should point out that the Set Up and Reinforcement Schedule isn’t actually called that, but that’s how I thought about it and now I can’t stop calling it that. The word “schedule” never appears on the card or – so far as I’m aware – in the rules. Don’t get uptight when your copy just has “19.0) GAME SET UP” at the top.

This has been the second part of my exploration of my three-game Legion catch-up order. I don’t think I’m going to get to part three, A Glorious Chance (Legion Wargames, 2023) for a couple of weeks, given family commitments over the holidays, but I may surprise myself. In the meantime, thanks for reading this far, and hope the season is good to you and yours.

 

* This is not meant to be an indictment against the misuse or wrongful allocation of the picture; Barron no doubt did his best with the resources he had to hand. The US Army Center of Military History still represents the painting on their website as being Turner’s Pass. These things when left this long tend to take on a life of their own, and while everyone else appreciates the fine work or the stirring narrative, only pedants and curmudgeons mutter their disapproval.

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Flanks of Gettysburg: Little Round Top, Culp's Hill – July 1863

 

Flanks of Gettysburg: Little Round Top, Culp's Hill – July 1863 (Compass Games, 2024) is a company-level game that looks in closer detail at the action of July 2, 1863 during the battle of Gettysburg, when Lee sought to turn and roll up the extended flanks of the Union line of battle. These two actions, both relatively small in light of the overall battle, were nonetheless significant, and could arguably have led to a reversal of fortunes if even one attack had succeeded.

Flanks of Gettysburg is a John Poniske design, and represents an evolution in his company-scale exploration of American Civil War battles, proceeded by Fire on the Mountain: Battle of South Mountain September 14, 1862 (Legion Wargames, 2022)  Belmont: Grant's Baptism of Command, November 7th, 1861 (Compass Games, 2017 – featured in Paper Wars #87), neither of which I haven’t yet got to try out, and Ball’s Bluff (Legion Wargames, 2015), which was my first experience at tactical ACW wargaming.

As usual, apologies for the poor lighting. This photo doesn't do justice
to the box art.

The first thing that strikes you about the box is the cover art. The painting chosen to adorn the front to the Flanks of Gettysburg is The Famous Charge of the Twentieth Maine 2 July 1863, by acclaimed twentieth-century American military artist and illustrator, H. Charles McBarron Jr. It depicts the famous bayonet charge by the Union forces against the hard-fighting and by then exhausted Confederate soldiers of Hood’s division at Little Round Top. The painting (actually only a partial representation, but it does deliver the point) sits below a partial map of the town of Gettysburg from the period.

Box back. It's a nice, sturdy 2-inch box.

I like Compass Games' approach to their back-of-the-box information. This hasn't always been the case, but they have exhibited a much more standardised approach to this in the most recent seven or eight games I’ve bought. The details cover the technicalities of the game, rating the game’s complexity (Medium, in this case), Time Scale (one turn is around 30 minutes of game time), and Map Scale (30 yards to a hex), Unit Scale (40-50 men here), then goes into the playability factors, including Number of Players (1-2), Solitaire Suitability (High), Average duration (2-3 hours) and Recommended Age (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wargame that didn’t suggest 14 or older).

The Rulebook for Flanks of Gettysburg is printed in full colour on a kind of half-gloss paper (not true matt finish, but not so shiny as to make it difficult to read). It technically runs to twenty pages, but the layout person has adopted the European convention of numbering from the page after the cover page. I used to work on corporate publications with a German layout and print-prep guy who always did this; it used to drive me nuts at first, but there are more worthy hills to die on*.

The Table of Contents offers the chapter numbers only, which is a tad disappointing – I personally prefer page numbers for finding a rule quickly – but I suppose it may be better to leave the page numbers off than to have references that don’t end up corresponding to the correct pages in the final publication.

Sample page from the rulebook.

On that point, I was watching the Compass Town Hall from October 3^rd, and I mentioned in the comments that Flanks was arriving that day, and Brittani-Pearl read my comment and mentioned live that I would want to download the current living rules before getting into it. Doing a quick and dirty comparison of the two documents, I can see why that could be a legitimate warning – some of the explanation have been tightened up and cross-referencing to other related rules is much more thorough, but I don’t think the rules as they stand would be unplayable. Anyone who has gamed for any length of time will have come across much more difficult-to-navigate rules-sets than this and and still managed to get a game going (insert the typical “Damn kids, get off my lawn” rant here).

I’ll just note one more thing here; the two games are essentially single scenario games. The scenario set-up details are chapters 4.0 and 5.0 of the rules (starting page 6), in a fourteen-chapter rules set (including chapters on Optional Rules and Designer Notes). This struck me as odd, but it actually makes a lot of sense, at least considering how I learn a new game. After giving the rules a once-over, I will tend to setup a game (usually the easiest scenario) and push some counters around with the rulebook open in front of me. The rules layout not only endorses this approach; it actively encourages it.

PAC (double-sided, left) and the Terrain Effects Chart and Unit legend (right).

The game comes with the following: one Player Aid Card (double sided), one combined Terrain Effects Chart and unit counter decoder, and two Set-Up Cards, one for the Union player and another for the CSA player. I’m a little disappointed with the inclusion of just one PAC to be shared between the players. It’s less impactful on me as I tend to do most of the rules-adjudication with most of my regular gaming partners, so it makes no odds.

The PAC is the only double-sided card in the package. The front incorporates an abbreviated Sequence of Play a breakdown of Firepower and its effects, a reminder about stacking (up to four Fire Points total) with examples, a reminder about Facing in the games (top counter-edge is the front and must face a hex-side square-on, either side is a flank, and the three rear hex-sides are rear and the unit cannot fire in those directions without first turning), an abbreviated table of Movement costs, and an action sequence for Melee combat. The reverse side offers instructions for Rallying unit, the uses of Officers, a breakdown of Victory Point values, and guidelines for Sharpshooter units, Headquarters chits, and for the Union player, the Engineer Warren piece, which I can’t wait to see in action.

The single Terrain Effects Chart is fine – in fact I’m surprised room wasn’t made on the map-sheets for a TEC, but that may become clearer when I actually get the game to the table The TEC also incorporates legends to explain all the details related on the various counters.

Set-up cards covering both games.

The Set-Up Cards do double duty for the two games. One end of the card serves for the Culp’s Hill scenario, while the other end serves for the Little Round Top action. At first glance, the cards can seem a little disorientating, but I think they will play well. The cards include details of when regimental chits are added to the draw cup through the course of the game. I'll come back to the draw cup and chits in a bit.

Culp's Hill map-board.

Now, to the maps. The two maps depicting the battlefields were prepared by the notable ACW cartographer and game designer, Rick Barber. Mr Barber, who passed away in 2021, knew Gettysburg well. He had rendered the landscape of the battle in map form for several games, including A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Flying Pig Games, 2022) and his own Summer Storm: The Battle of Gettysburg (Clash of Arms Games, 1998). These maps are hand-drawn, and remarkable documents in their own right.

Culp's Hill map (detail).Culp’s hill is the bigger battle of the two, with eighteen
regiments fielded across the two sides.

I’m a fan of Mr Barber’s work; he also created the map for Mr Poniske’s first company-level ACW game, Balls Bluff, and these two maps are works of art. It took me a little while to come around to his preference of colour palette, but I’ve come around to it. It highlights both sides’ counters on the board, and changes in elevation are clear without being too jarring. The starting points for regiment beginning on-board and the Objective hexes are also clearly represented on the map without being too distracting.

Little Round Top Map-board (apologies for the glare).

The maps are printed on a light card stock instead of the familiar heavy paper stock. I was a little concerned that they wouldn’t lay very flat out of the box, but they are really quite good, not needing any serious back-bending at the fold at all to get a workably flat surface, even without a plexi overlay. I believe Bill has said in a recent Town Hall that all of Compass’s unmounted gameboards would be printed on this material hereon in (leave me a note in the comments if I’ve got this wrong).

Little Round Top map (detail). The flags mark the set-up points for on-board-at-start
regiments, while the gold stars mark Victory Point locations.

The play here is a chit-pull system that lends itself well to solitaire play. Chits representing attendant regiments are placed in an opaque container (not included with the game – I use an oversized coffee mug with a rounded bottom, wide enough to get my whole hand into), and units are ordered in the sequence of their chit being drawn from the cup, when all the chits have been drawn, units ordered, and actions resolved, the round ends. The retrieved chits then go back into the draw container, along with the chits for any reinforcements appearing in the subsequent round, and the first chit for the next turn is drawn. A lot of games and game-systems use a chit-pull mechanic these days, but my introduction to this device came with Ball’s Bluff, so FoG already feels somewhat familiar.

Counter sheet 1.

Counter sheets 2 & 3.

The counters are 5/8” and both clear and attractive, prepared by another familiar artist, Bruce Yearian. The unit are identified by their colour (a lighter and a middling shade of blue for the Union and light grey and butternut for the CSA, to distinguish the two separate game sets), each with a coloured stripe under their company and regiment details to make it easier to identify their formations, while the leader sport little portraits. A nice addition is the visual historical note against some of the portraits denoting if that leader had been wounded or killed in the battle. 

Detail of Union counters, Little Round Top (pale blue, left), and Culp's Hill (darker blue,
right). Leaders and companies are marked by their matching coloured bands.

The counters are easy to read, with a single Force Points factor and a pip system for morale (most are two or three pips, with some at just one. The identifying colour band is replicated on the draw chits, making it easier to identify which troops are currently being ordered. All in all, a lot of thought has gone into making the game playable, so the functions of the play don't take away from the verisimilitude of the experience. 

The whole box and dice.

Lastly, Flanks of Gettysburg comes with enough dice to carry you through the game (eight in all, four white, four black). 

I’m a latecomer to tactical ACW games, but I haven’t yet met one I didn’t like, so I don’t think it will be long before Flanks of Gettysburg makes it to the table. Look out for a review in the next month or two (I have a bit of a back-log, but I can see this game sneaking to the front of the queue).

 

* I think this must have bugged somebody else at Compass as well because the Living Rules’ pagination begins with the cover page.

 

Review: Plains Indian Wars

 
 

Charles S. Roberts Award winner: Best Early Modern Wargame

At the end of the American Civil War, the drive west began in earnest. For decades, white people had set out into Indian territory to carve out a new life for themselves and their families, or to carve gold or silver out of the mountain-sides, or to find some promised land. Many died, and many of those were killed by native Americans who saw this intrusion as a threat to their way of life. After the Civil War, a confluence of events “back East” – social, political, and economic – opened the floodgates to tens of thousands, then soon after hundreds of thousands of people, each looking for opportunity and prosperity in the untamed West. And many Indian communities were summarily wiped out by settlers or government forces in retribution for individual attacks, or simply to remove a potential threat.  As big as the frontier was, it proved too small for white settlers and native tribes to coexist. The rest, as they say, is history.

Plains Indian Wars (GMT Games, 2022) is a high-level simulation of the interactions between the US Government, white settlers, and the resident Plains Indian peoples – the Apache, Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Cheyanne, Comanche, Hidatsa, Kiowa, and Mandan nations – in a period of massive Western expansion, driven in a large part by the creation of the Trans-Continental Railroad by the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroad Companies. In a way, the creation of the railroad spelt the end of the indigenous way of life more completely than any other single factor; Plains people lived nomadically, following the massive bison herds’ seasonal migrations. Where the railroad track had been laid, the buffalo would not cross it; their roaming lands were permanently bisected.

 
Appearance
From the start, let me say that the whole game looks great. Terry Leeds was responsible for the board and the general art contribution to the game, and he has managed to create a game with simple components The game is played on a map representing the hereto “unsettled” territories of the United States of America, roughly from St Louis in the east to the Rocky Mountain range in the west, with slender portions of the Canada to the North and Mexico to the south. This map is divided into territories for movement and scoring purposes.

State of play at the bottom of the fifth (round).

The map feels like a period representation of the region; not a Corps of Army Engineers survey map, but like a massive painting commissioned by the directors of a railroad interest to place in their boardroom. The board accommodates nearly the whole game and its components, which is always as triumph of design. The game uses wooden cubes of various colours to denote the various factions’ forces, as well as the railroad (which has a dedicated track printed on the map) and the Wagon Trains (which traverse various historical trails, also incorporated into the map). The cubes are matched by wooden discs that are drawn from a bag at random for activation of each faction of game function.

Each player faction has their own set of fifteen tarot-sized cards, a mixture of Action and Event cards. These are beautifully presented, with many featuring period illustrations. The cards each relate to significant individuals, historic events and social phenomena from the period of the great westward migration, and each includes a short descriptive passage.

The Union Pacific forges westward.

Play
Plains Indian Wars supports two to four players; for a four-player game, each player controls one player faction – North or South Plains Tribes (NPT, SPT), The US Cavalry (which also controls the Enemy Tribes) or the Settlers (who also operate the proscribed functions of the Wagon Trains and the Railroad). For a two-player game, one player will control the NPT and SPT, while the other player handles all the government and settler functions. A three-player game is an option, but I’d advise having one player handle both Plains tribe factions and the other players each play the US Cavalry and the Settlers respectively for reasons that will become apparent.

The game is made up of an indeterminate number of rounds, with turn order dictated by the random draw of a coloured marker matching that faction or function. On their turn, a faction will play two of the cards from their three-card hand, one Action and one Event (if the player only has Event cards in their hand, they play one Event as an Action, as per instructions in the rulebook; if they only hold actions, they only play a single action). When the Railroad (black) or Wagon Train (white) markers are drawn, the Settler player places the railroad cubes or moves the Wagon Train cubes along their chosen trails respectively. When the Enemy Tribes (purple) marker comes out, the Cavalry player places a new Enemy Indian cube on a controlled territory and may move a group to instigate a fight with the Plains tribes. (This is why it could get boring, if two players with Plains tribe factions were only responding to one marker draw each and the third (government) was handling the other five.)

The combat system in Plains Indian Wars is simple and elegant, and deftly captures much of the nature of these conflicts. Each faction has its own specialised conflict dice, with hit and treaty markings, as well as blank faces. The two involved factions each roll dice; one if a single block is present, two for multiples. For each Hit face, an antagonist’s block is removed. Blank faces allow that many blocks to escape to an adjoining territory. If both factions roll Treaty-faces (but only if both sides roll such), any hits are ignored and the conflict is ceased in that territory – peace has broken out between the warring factions. No one retreats and no further conflict can be instigated in that territory for the remainder of that round.

The game can end in a couple of ways. If a faction deck plays its last card on their turn, the round is played to its conclusion, then scoring takes place. Or in the case of the Intercontinental railroad being completed on an activation, the game terminates with the last activation of that round. As an automatised game function, the Settler faction has some control over the building of the railroad; when the railroad marker is drawn, up to three blocks are place at each rail-head, so long as the territory adjacent to the rails is populated by Settlers; no settler blocks in attendance, no railroad.

At its heart, Plains Indian Wars is an area control game. A significant portion of each faction’s Victory points come from who holds what ground. The onus is somewhat on the Plains tribes to maintain as much of their territory as they can in the face of the encroaching settlers, and to take and hold as many of the Enemy Tribes (Purple bordered) territories as they can; the Plains tribes don’t gain points for these, but they will be penalised if they don’t hold a majority of the enemy territories in their respective regions. The Plains Tribes also gain points if the railroad remains uncompleted at the end of the final turn, and for each Wagon Train block eliminated (these blocks go onto the Planes tribes’ scoring track. The US players gain points collectively for the territories held and the Wagons that make it to the Rocky Mountains, as well as the completion of the railroad.

Slow going for the Central Pacific Railroad

Historically, the best the Plains people could do was a strategy of hit and run attacks on vulnerable targets, while harassing the US Cavalry forces sent against them, avoiding larger-scale conflicts where they could. As a Plains tribe player, you must do your best to hold back the tide of settlers pushing into your lands with a strike and evade strategy, all the while taking on the Enemy tribes in their home territories, and preventing as many Wagon Trains from completing their journey as you can. As the government and the migrating settlers, your job is to push the Indians further to the south and north, claim lands in the name of Manifest Destiny, and get the Intercontinental Railroad built. That last part requires Settlers to be present all the way along the path on which the railroad is being built, and fending off attacks from hostile Indians; no easy task, but nothing worth a damn ever is.

 
Appraisal
I’ve been meaning to write up a review of Plains Indian Wars since I started this blog. Personally, this was one of my favourite games from last year, though it has proven to be somewhat divisive among the people I’ve played it with. After playing the game, hard-bitten grognards have expressed their sense of sadness over the tragic inevitability of the fate of the Plains Indians. I found it hard to separate the action in the game from the history It simulates; every Indian victory was pyrrhic and short lived. Any tribal leader who actually managed through armed resistance to draw a new treaty or concession from the government would nearly always live to see that agreement rescinded within a generation or – more likely – within a decade. But, for me at least, one of this takes away from the challenge presented in the game or the pleasure in the playing of it.

Overall, the game runs smoothly, and once everyone understands what they are trying to achieve, in moves along at a brisk pace (individual moments of analysis paralysis notwithstanding). The US players have more board-time than the Plains tribe players, an artifact of the additional functions of the Wagon Trains and the Railroad falling to the Settlers player, and the activities of the Enemy tribes to the Cavalry player, the random turn-order helps keep everyone engaged in the game. Even with all a table of newbies, I’ve found each game I’ve played or adjudicated to finish within two hours. Plains Indian Wars does not outstay its welcome. 

An outbreak of peace.

For such a seemingly one-sided conflict, Plains Indian Wars is remarkably well-balanced. I’ve played the game seven or eight times now, and no faction or side seems to have a clear advantage. While chance plays a part, both in the drawing of counters for turn-order and the caprices of the dice-rolls, a sensible new player will have a good chance of keeping up with or outstripping more experienced players.

Some have criticised PIW as being too much a Eurogame. I can’t see it myself. The underlying system is similar to Academy Games’ Birth of America series, 1812: The Invasion of Canada (2012), 1775: Rebellion (2013), and 1754: Conquest – The French and Indian War (2017). Having never played any of these, I can’t really speak to how PIW compares with them. I would say though that Plains Indian Wars is a reasonably accurate, if abstracted, representation of a significant conflict in North American history. I get that some people may find it difficult to make the leap from counters with numerical values to blocks with no clear value of strength or effectiveness, but what makes a wargame isn’t the accuracy of the order of battle, but the designer’s intent; the way the rules work and the elements of the game interact can transform a game into a simulation of a historical event or process. All the elements of Plains Indian Wars work together to create a bird’s eye view of this period of history in all its tragic glory.

Three made it; many didn't.

Designer John Poniske is no stranger to difficult or sensitive subjects in his games. His published games include Amigos and Insurrectos: The Philippine Insurrection,1899-1902 (Battles magazine #11, 2016), Maori Wars: The New Zealand Land Wars, 1845-1872 (Legion Wargames, 2018), Bleeding Kansas (Decision Games, 2019), and Wolfe Tone Rebellion (Compass Games, 2023). Poniske is a retired History and Journalism teacher, and the fundamental drive to educate as well as challenge and entertain comes through in all his games. My only disappointment with Plains Indian Wars was the lack of any historical essay or designer’s notes. I’ve read fairly extensively about the period for a separate, so I have some understanding of the historical background. There are short notes on the cards, offering some historical context regarding the events and personalities represented, but after the embarrassment of resources provided with Ball’s Bluff (Legion Wargames, 2015), the absence of any elucidating material with PIW was felt.

Plains Indian Wars recently won the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Early Modern Wargame, voted best in a field that included The Red Burnoose (Hit ‘Em With a Shoe Games, 2022) and Votes for Women (Fort Circle Games, 2022). While I might have issues with the title of the category, the win is a Best Among Equals kind of deal.

* I should note that PIW comes with a separate set of solo rules, developed by Etienne Michot, which offer different models of solitaire play for playing either the Plains tribes or the US government / settlers, with variations of play. I haven’t tried these out yet – the games I’ve played solo I have played out four-handed to familiarise myself with the game with the aim of teaching others. I have read though the solo rules, and, when I’ve had the chance to play thought them a couple of times, I’ll give a report on how well they play.